ARI Literacy Leadership

The Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) is a statewide K-3 initiative committed to supporting the development of high-quality instruction that will prepare all students with the literacy skills needed to meet or exceed grade-level standards. The goal of the ARI is to significantly improve reading instruction and ultimately achieve 100% literacy among public school students.

Each component in the school-wide system for literacy is like a cog working with other gears in a complex machine. The components are critical for improving reading proficiency. They contain the criteria that inform practices, processes, and the overall strength of services delivered to improve reading achievement.

It is the start of what will be a fantastic year, so let’s shift into first gear! The beginning of the year is an excellent time to establish a firm direction and shift all things to accomplishing our goal of Every Child. Every Chance. Every Day. Although some of us may not know how to drive a car equipped with a stick shift, we do have the basic knowledge that it begins in first gear and works its way through the gears to move forward to the desired location. How you start the shifting of the gears determines if the start is smooth or rocky. When starting the car, you must hold the clutch down to begin. What steps do you take to get the car started? The success of a great school year begins with the clutch. What structures are you implementing that will lead you to a successful, intentional, and purposeful school year? What continuous support is needed, and how will you ensure it happens? Hold the clutch down! Shift to first gear! The Alabama Literacy Act will continue to serve as the foundation for "our” clutch, shifting to first gear, and beyond.

One Team-One Voice: Teamwork

To create a firm foundation and move to first gear, it is important as leaders to set the tone with the culture and climate of One Team, One Voice. The most successful leaders believe in their team, build a culture where the team believes in each other, and support the team vision. A firm foundation in the clutch will provide structure, intentionality, and focus.

Stand Firm in Your Why: Focus

Knowing where you are headed is another important component in creating a strong clutch (foundation) for the school year. Think on these areas when determining your focus.

• What are your areas of focus (Big Rocks)? Go deep and not wide.
• How will you keep the main thing, the main thing?
• How will you ensure that student achievement is at the forefront of all you do and the decisions you make?
• How will you ensure that you are visible in classrooms to observe instructional practices?

The Clutch: Shifting to First Gear

Much like learning to drive a car that is equipped with a stick shift, there will be times when you will have to restart (refine plans), smooth out the shifts to prevent jerking (make instructional decisions that are not comfortable or easy), or pause to reteach how to use the clutch (remind the team of the goal or vision). Don’t be afraid to put things in reverse. Remember the goal is to ultimately shift the gears to get to the desired destination, which is all students reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Be ready for the shift!

• Share and/or review the Local Reading Specialist (LRS) job description with faculty.
• Plan and collaborate routinely with your LRS to establish a partnership.
• Schedule and conduct classroom walk-throughs regularly using a Science of Reading walkthrough tool.
• Communicate with parents about progress in Summer Reading Camp (If students did not make adequate progress or maintain during summer camp, determine what interventions will be used during the school year (before/after school tutoring, additional intervention supports).
• Focus on Tier I instruction.
• Consider what planning structures will be implemented.

ARI LEA Contacts:

Welcome back, school leaders! The Alabama Reading Initiative would like to welcome new district leaders, principals, and Local Reading Specialists to the fold. The 2024-2025 school year is in full gear. Are you ready for an AMAZING year? Your ARI Regional team is ready to support your literacy vision. Our first task is scheduling our initial/kickoff meetings to discuss pertinent information around our collaborative work. Your leadership specialist will contact you soon to schedule a meeting this month if they have not done so already. These meetings will last approximately 45 minutes to one hour. During these meetings, we will collaborate on the following:

• Alabama Literacy Act Requirements/Updates
• District/School Literacy Priorities
• Assessment Plans
• ARI Support Structure/Communication Protocols
• Any other pertinent/needed information and areas of focus/need

The LEA contact is the targeted audience for this meeting, but you may invite other support team members to the meeting at your discretion. We look forward to working with your district and serving alongside you during the school year. The Comprehensive Memorandum has been released. Please click here to view the memo. It is a great resource to keep nearby.

Just a principals are literacy leaders on their campuses, LRS are also literacy leaders who support teachers to collaboratively make data-informed decisions and increase reading achievement. The importance of improved reading achievement and the establishment of the Alabama Literacy Act require a proactive approach to meeting the goal of having our students reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Therefore, LRS and school leaders should work to continuously provide teachers with job embedded professional learning. It is important to establish and maintain a principal-LRS partnership. Separating coaching and evaluative roles is key to this partnership. With the principal’s support, the LRS can be established as a valued resource within the school community. This requires consistent collaboration between school leaders, teachers, and LRS to analyze student data and make instructional adjustments.

The following questions from page 34 of Diane Sweeney’s book, Moves for Launching a New Year of Student-Centered Coaching, can help guide conversations of the principal-LRS team:

• What is your vision for coaching, and how does it translate into your expectations for the role?
• How can we be sure to separate coaching from supervision and evaluation?
• How can we talk about the coaching work in a way that is transparent, professional and asset- based?

As students return to school this year, it is imperative to know where they are in their reading development. Per the Alabama Literacy Act, the first task is to administer an approved Early Years Assessment to each K-3rd grade student. Once we have this baseline data, you can use this data to inform your decisions related to planning for tiered instruction. If students are not performing on grade level, we are tasked with using additional screening measures to identify deficiencies so that we can intervene in those areas.

It is also important to note that you already have data that you can utilize to inform your instruction prior to BOY assessments. 1st-3rd grade students have prior Early Years Assessment data that can support you while administering or prior to administering the BOY assessment. Another important piece of data that you currently have is your Spring 2024 ACAP Reading Sufficiency and Proficiency Data. This data can be used to inform instructional decisions prior to administering the BOY assessments. It can be used to identify school-wide focus areas and trends over a period of time.

To support you in your data-informed decision making, the following video links from DRC can be accessed:

Alabama is charting a strategic course to prepare students for life after graduation, and literacy must be the vehicle for improving outcomes for our students. A strong foundation in reading will support student learning in all content areas. Implementing high-quality Tier 1 literacy instruction will enable the state, district, and school to impact the largest numbers of students’ academic achievement and reduce the number of students requiring Special Education and intervention. To ensure every student graduates from high school and is ready for college and career, high-quality Tier 1 literacy instruction must be aligned to the science of reading research and resources.

• High quality instruction should be based upon the science of how children learn to read. It is essential and necessary for all students, especially for those who are at risk for reading difficulties. To ensure students become proficient readers and confident learners, we must align our literacy instruction to the science of reading.

• Literacy instruction must be explicit, direct, systematic, sequential, and cumulative and must be aligned using evidence-based tools and resources.

• Effective literacy instruction must be coherent and vertically aligned, so that instruction spirals across various providers of literacy instruction.

• Adolescent literacy learners need continued literacy instructional support and more engagement with various informational texts (digital and print) to learn how to use literacy skills for specific disciplines (content areas) in various contexts.

• Learning opportunities must include rich and explicit teaching to build background knowledge in content areas. (Wexler, 2019)

Alabama's Guidance Manual for Problem-Solving Teams provides a framework for school building leadership to improve all tiers of instruction and intervention.

This manual provides educators and educational leadership with:

• Overview of AL-MTSS and its relationship to PST
• Description of RTI and PBS models
• Protocols for implementation of the essential elements within the AL-MTSS framework
• Guiding questions, example modifications, and interventions to ensure success for all
• Vignettes of PST as a Professional Learning Community (PLC)

Every Child. Every Chance. Every Day.

All students must have equitable access to a tiered continuum of supports, regardless of their achievement level. A layered continuum of supports ensures that all students receive equitable access to foundational wellness, behavioral, and academic supports. Each layer of support increases in intensity from universal (ALL students) to targeted (SOME students) to the most intensive supports (FEW students). This systematic, tiered model approach supports all learners through the selection of evidence based instructional practices and interventions in response to both academic and behavioral needs based on universal screening methods for early identification. The system includes ongoing progress monitoring of the effectiveness of instruction.

The Foundational Literacy Tiered Levels of Instruction graphic below depicts this model.

The Prevention and Intervention to Support Student Learning resource provides best practices in early literacy policy and implementation. Eighteen elements have been identified that make effective literacy policies, and Alabama is utilizing all eighteen elements to support our literacy work. They are PREVENTION and INTERVENTION driven.

ARI is excited to announce that the State of Alabama was able to award 115 grants to fund reading interventionist positions throughout the state. (School Year 2024-2025 Reading Interventionist Position Grant Recipients Supporting Implementation of the Alabama Literacy Act.pdf)

If your school has a locally funded interventionist or someone in a position that could utilize CALT training, please have the person complete this form (CALT Training Information) for more information about training cohorts not associated with the interventionists grants.

The 2024-2025 Assessment Windows Resource is provided below. It contains dates for the following assessments:

• First Grade Readiness Assessment
• Alabama Early Learning Inventory (formerly AlaKiDS)
• Beginning of Year Early Years Assessment & Math Formative Benchmark Assessment
• Beginning of Year Early Numeracy Screener
• Middle of Year Early Years Assessment & Math Formative Benchmark Assessment
• Middle of Year Early Numeracy Screener
• ACCESS for ELLs including Alternate ACCESS
• ACAP Alternate
• ACAP Summative
• End of Year Early Years Assessment & Math Formative Benchmark Assessment
• ACAP Supplemental Reading Test- Window 1
• ACAP Supplemental Reading Test- Window 2
• Summer Learning Early Years Assessment & Math Formative Benchmark Assessment

PowerSchool Analytics and Insights, within our PowerSchool Student Information System, will be used as an ongoing method for a more seamless reporting process. Requirements should be implemented within the natural process of your work for the 2024-2025 school year. The following pieces will be used to gather data. Please work to ensure your submissions into these platforms are correct.

• Early Years Assessment data merges from the vendor to Unified Insights
• ACAP data (received directly from DRC)
• Alabama Literacy Act page in PowerSchool
• SRIP inside PowerSchool Analytics and Insights/MTSS structure for all K-3 students beginning the 2023-2024 school year; Interventions begin summer 2024 and continue into the 2024-2025 school year
• Literacy Act Portfolios for all students who did not demonstrate a pathway through the 2024 ACAP Summative or Supplemental
• Attendance and data for Summer Reading Camp 2024 in PowerSchool Analytics and Insights/MTSS Interventions
• Professional learning: in-state approved professional learning
• 2023-2024 information must be complete by September 16, 2024

The ALSDE is offering training opportunities and conversations to help grow your knowledge on how to use PowerSchool in the most efficient way possible. Join the PowerSchool coaches to discuss important topics for beginning of the school year. Sessions will be offered multiple times, and subsequent sessions for each topic are repeated content. The link below provides you with the August trainings flyer.

The Coaching Communities lab structure received positive feedback as an opportunity for LRS to see coaching in action. As a result, the coaching lab process will continue in Coaching Communities for the 2024-2025 school year. The windows for each lab are below:

During the 2023-2024 school year, we made the exciting transition of hosting Alabama Reading Initiative – funded LRS' Coaching Communities in school buildings which enabled us to build small communities of practice in a lab setting to “see the work” of coaching in real time. This model has been extremely successful across the state. Using a similar model for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year, ARI will begin Leadership Labs as part of our Strong Leaders, Strong Readers professional learning. These labs will highlight various aspects of leadership to strengthen the partnership with the principal and local reading specialist, with the goal of improving student outcomes.

We look forward to these sessions being hosted by various local education agencies (LEAs) and schools. As part of the School Principal Leadership and Mentoring Act, Strong Leaders, Strong Readers Leadership Labs will count toward the required 5 days of high-quality professional learning in the Alabama Principal Leadership Development System. To maintain a smaller group size and maximize the learning experience in the Leadership Lab setting, Principals will attend two face-to-face sessions and two virtual sessions. The specifics regarding dates, locations, and times of these ARI face-to-face Leadership Labs will be communicated to the ARI central office contact and applicable principals in each district by the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) ARI state or regional staff.

During these labs, we will reference the New LETRS for Administrators Course frequently. If you have not already signed up, it is not too late. Registration for Cohort 8 closes on August 30th. Click here to register.

We want to ensure that as leaders, we are learning and growing in the Science of Reading alongside our teachers, “One-Team-One Voice”. This will be a great opportunity to do so! Sign up today!

A new resource has been created to help support you as the new Principal Act and Alabama Principal Leadership Development System (APLDS) program for principals and assistant principals is being implemented this school year. When you go to the link, you will find several other resources including FAQs, flyers, videos, and documents. For questions, you can contact Anna Shepherd-Jones at anna.jones@alsde.edu.

LETRS Cohort 8 Registration: This registration ends August 30, 2024. The registration can be accessed below.

LETRS License Reminder: Each LETRS course has a license end date. This is the last day an educator can access the LETRS course online content. All participants are supported through email reminders about course progress timelines and live sessions (in-person or virtual) offerings to complete all requirements on time. The live sessions are also listed in PowerSchool. If a participant desires access to the online platform content after a license expires, the cost is $99 per year and can be purchased through Lexia, support@lexialearning.com, or 800-507-2772.

What is the NEW LETRS for Administrators? (updated 2023)

• Two-year professional development course for school leadership, coaches, principals, and district administrators

• Defines the systems and infrastructures required to successfully implement a literacy initiative aligned to scientifically based research

• Informs administrators about LETRS and LETRS Early Childhood course content

• Supports leaders who are making the shift to best practices in literacy instruction and who want to support educators on their learning journey into the science of reading

• Provides interviews with leaders from around the country, literacy initiative planning tools, engaging videos of classroom instruction, observation rubrics, and a wealth of resources to support leaders in their schools and learning communities.

The LETRS course of study provides educators and administrators with a deeper understanding of the science of reading by covering all layers of language organization (phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax, semantics) and their relevance for teaching reading, spelling, and oral language.

Cohort 8 is open for registration through August 30, 2024, for Alabama's Public/Public Charter School educators, including professors in Alabama's Educator Prep Programs. Please use the Cohort 8 link above to register. Kickoff sessions will begin August 2024.

🎉 Calling all Alabama educators from PreK to higher ED! 🎓 Don't miss out on this incredible professional learning opportunity presented by the ALSDE and the Alabama Reading Initiative! Dive into the Neuhaus Structured Literacy Modules, designed to equip you with the tools for evidence-based, structured literacy instruction. These modules offer a deep dive into the essential components of structured literacy, backed by solid research grounded in the science of reading. Discover why these components are crucial for nurturing skilled readers and learn practical strategies for implementing them effectively in your direct instruction. Sign up now using the provided form and get ready to receive your invitation directly from Neuhaus within seven days. Plus, with a generous 90-day window to complete the course work, you can learn at your own pace. But wait, there's more! Earn PowerSchool credit upon completion, with 1 credit hour awarded per module. Don't let this opportunity pass you by—join us in unlocking the secrets to effective literacy instruction and empowering your students to become confident, proficient readers! 📚🚀 *This professional learning is not intended to replace LETRS for Alabama K-3 educators. Instead, it is intended to provide ongoing professional learning to those who have already completed LETRS. In addition, this opportunity is provided for educators serving students beyond grade 3. This professional learning can also be used to support educators in unique situations (long-term certified substitutes, upper elementary, higher ed, or an introduction to the SOR).

The graphic below shows the Gradual Release Model for Coaching Support. This includes:

• Universal Support
• Targeted Support
• Intensive Support

Regardless of designation, all K-3 schools receive regional coaching support and funding for a Local Reading Specialist committed to the job description.

Once your school has administered the Early Years Assessment, what are your next steps? What are the best ways to support K-3 teachers with data-based decision making to guide instruction? Your ARI Regional Literacy Specialist is here to support you as you analyze data and support your teachers to make data-informed decisions.

K–3 literacy coaching in Alabama is a differentiated, job-embedded professional learning composed of side-by-side, intentional support built on collaborative work to implement evidence-based literacy instructional practices. This focus is to ensure all students are able to read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Alabama believes literacy coaching provides all teachers with a thought partner. Coaching practices are intentional and designed to build educator capacity. The Alabama Structured Student Centered Coaching Practice Profile provides a core component of Analyzing Data.

Exemplar Coaching Actions for the core component Analyzing Data:

• Identifies, defines, and collects data measures (both qualitative and quantitative) in use in the classroom.
• Utilizes data disaggregated by: race or ethnicity, disability status, EL status, SES, gender.

• Identifies areas of strength and need in the student data.
• Identifies and names the specific skill needs by naming what is mastered vs. what is not.
• Identifies the lowest level within the reading progression and starts from there.
• Celebrates significant student growth.
• Plans with the principal based on data.
• Identifies opportunities in the student data for full and/or mini coaching cycles.

The Alabama Reading Initiative Back to School Newsletter provides families and communities with literacy resources to support students. As we prepare to start the school year, we want to extend a warm welcome to all of you! Whether you are returning or new to our Family Literacy Newsletter, please know that we are thrilled to have you with us! This edition is filled with activities and ideas that will help your young student be a successful reader. We hope that you enjoy them!

The information included in this document is done from the perspective of improving LITERACY instruction for students and is only intended to outline support that directly relates to literacy instruction. Please use any resource links with discretion, as their position statements are their own and not necessarily representative of ARI and the ALSDE. Usage of any materials should be with adherence to rules and regulations of the Alabama State Department of Education.